This is another thread where we senselessly pick on Pitchfork

One thing's for sure, she ain't lookin' back.

sigh ... all those years spent in the company helicopter, tooling back and forth between Portsmouth VA, the Dwight School and daddy's Swiss Chalet ... thank god she's finally made something of herself.

I think Dusted Magazine is miles ahead of them.

just for kicks, look at this news item from today:

Swami Reissues Drive Like Jehu's Yank Crime

Catherine Lewis reports:
Put down your Starbucks, folks: Drive Like Jehu's signature 1994 LP, Yank Crime, was re-released this week on frontman Rick Froberg's label, Swami.

wrong guy, it's john reis' label.

This new-and-improved version includes all the tracks from the original release, plus three bonus tracks: "Bullet Train to Vegas" and "Hand Over Fist" (from the out-of-print 1992 Merge seven-inch), and the original version of "Sinews" from the Head Start to Purgatory compilation. The original version! Score one for the completists!

The San Diego-based group got together in 1990, as an outlet for Rocket from the Crypt members John "Speedo" Reis and Rick Froberg (aka Eric Froberg, aka Rick Farr, aka Rick Fork).

Rick was never in RFTC.

Prior to Jehu, the duo fronted Pitchfork, a band that came to define San Diego's booming post-punk sound (but not this website). Pitchfork (the band) released one seven-inch, "Saturn Outhouse", and the 1990 Nemesis full-length Eucalyptus (the seven-inch was appended to the CD version of Eucalyptus). To complete their new band's sound, Reis and Froberg added bassist Mike Kennedy and drummer Mark Trombino, both from the band Night Soil Man. Drive Like Jehu released their eponymous debut album in 1992 on Headhunter, and followed Rocket from the Crypt onto Interscope, who released Yank Crime in May of 1994. The band broke up shortly thereafter.

Well, after two national tours...

Following their demise, Mike Kennedy went on to play in a band called Corrugated with Lane Miller (And/Ors, Swivelneck) and drummer Tim Johnson (who is rumored to be the guy painting his armpits on the cover of RFTC's Paint as a Fragrance). Corrugated released the Future of Crime LP in early 2001 on Flapping Jet. Original members Reis and Froberg teamed with Delta 72's Jason Kourkounis and RFTC's Gar Wood to form Hot Snakes.

Gar Wood was not an original member of Hot Snakes, there's no bass on the first record.

After the release of their debut Automatic Midnight on Sympathy for the Record industry, Reis started the label Swami,

wait, just 2 paragraphs above you said it was Rick's label! The record was not released on SFTRI, it was released on Swami, using SFTRI's distro.

Swami's debut release was THREE YEARS AGO, the 2nd RFTC singles comp.

which-- in addition to the Yank Crime reissue-- released Hot Snakes' 2002 album Suicide Invoice, and is currently finishing up the re-release of Pitchfork's Eucalyptus for February 2003. As for Mark Trombino, he's trying to make ends meet with his little producing gigs for Jimmy Eat World, Blink 182, and Less than Jake.

Track list for Yank Crime re-release:

01 Here Come the Rome Plows
02 Do You Compute
03 Golden Brown
04 Luau
05 Super Unison
06 New Intro
07 New Math
08 Human Interest
09 Sinews
10 Bullet Train to Vegas (Rare 7" track)
11 Hand Over Fist (Rare 7" track)
12 Sinews (Original Version)

as mentioned here:

they switched up the bonus tracks on the sleeve (at least on my copy):
song 10 is "hand over fist"
song 11 is "bullet train to vega$"

I suppose by way of disclosure I should confess that they recently panned my band's record, but I swear my hatred of them was well-established long beforehand, and had they given the record anything other than a negative review, I would have been completely flabbergasted (and probably disappointed). In a way, a bad review from them is vindicating.

but sterling how is anything you've mentioned in your first post "senseless"??! the review just gave me a headache and made me momentarily sad for the children.

I would suggest that saying Chris Lombardi is Sub Pop's "engineer" (as opposed to co-owner and co-founder) is a rather serious oversight. As is saying a band is from New York when they're really from LA. As is getting tracklistings wrong, or entire band lineups wrong. You think this is nitpicking? Leaving aside the mountains of questionable prose ("wizard's caps" and "gris-gris pinball" guitar playing, etc.) can you really call it "journalism" if there's no regard for actual facts...?

a) i thought the comparison to kool keith was very very polite to missy (and i was comparing the eccentric, sci-fi personas more than i was mic skills). you'd have a hard time convincing me that missy is anywhere in the same class as kool keith. and her pedigree...if you don't acknowledge that kool keith's resume is ten times longer than missy's, you really don't know much about the genre.

b) the "here's a little story" sample... I'm not trying to push stuff off on ryan (because he does a wonderful job editing my reviews), but originally it was qualified with "among others." It also originally stated that the sample is taken from the song "DJ Premier in Deep Concentration" and not the album Deep Concentration (as the italics would indicate). And yeah, Slick Rick…but the Premier song is a personal favorite. The comment was just an observation…and I never tried to guess just to who Tim was giving props to (contrary to what your post suggested).

Jess:

I shot you an e-mail after the post on the 80’s list because you made a personal attack on me. As much as I disagree with Sterling and the rest, he has remained respectful (which I guess is something you don’t take for granted around here) and hasn’t tried to cut me down with quick insults. and sorry for the bluntness of "fuck you," but there's really not enough time in my schedule to deal with people such as yourself.

to all:

There certainly is an agenda at ILM that dislikes indie rock, underground hip hop, and pitchfork. But as much as you seem to hate on us, you sure spend a lot of time talking about us. You guys have a lot of interesting things to say about music (and i do check the boards for that reason), but when it comes to hip-hop, you're generally blinded by your politics (and i realize that this is a broad generalization of ILM posters). And so are my friends (many of whom are very invested in hip hop and its culture) who've e-mailed me today asking how the fuck could i give Missy such a good review. I tried to listen to this album without prejudice, and this was my honest opinion. Sorry if you weren’t feeling it.

(actually my theory of why, as a sub, i can open the mag on the day it comes back into the office and *immediately* have my eye fall on the only mistake in 120 pages, is because i've already subconsciously clocked it, except production time pressure forced me into denial and wouldn't let my conscious mind see it...)

i haven't the slightest idea abt pf's structure or finances, though it's obviously far easier to correct errors on a website (haha at sight and sound we had an errors and clarifications box on the letters page, addressing errors in previous issues... which wz usually fantastically dull stuff — gaffer on police academy xxiii is derrick bender not derek bender — but always felt like we were parading round in a dunce's cap)

And I don't think Pitchfork has an in-house fact-checker at all, frankly.

yes, sorry, that's what i wz getting at: it has to be as specific and deliberate an investment as whether or not you buy your own watercooler, and that's how you know whether this matters (although affordability is obviously also an issue) (credibility in this area being what economists wd call an "external" i guess)

anyway buffy just started so g'night all

(in other news, marcello is joining the so solid crew.)

(for the record I think Pitchfork is a fun read and it always seems like there's something unspoken informing the P-fork hatin' that goes on hereabouts -- class issues would be my guess but what do I know)

sez who?!?!

Sam: I personally think Missy has a huge resume considering her impact on hip-hop, the importance of EVERYTHING she's done, and the impact of her collaborations.

Plus if you listen to missy's lyrics, she's never actually rapped about the future hardly at all.

Now Sterling is it or is it not fair to say that if Pitchfork resorted to this kind of hyperbole you'd happily skewer them publicly?

Pitchfork are fine when they stick to what they do best, but ile this next to last year's Basement Jaxx review as being a collosal missing-of-the-point. It's one thing for pop-rap-hataz to ignore Missy and vibe on Timbaland's production, but praising a Missy album for being reminiscent of DJ Premier is about as useless as praising the Jaxx's "Broken Dreams" for sounding a bit like Stereolab (and in any case both comparisons are such enormously forced leaps that the comparisons become largely meaningless as well as useless).

Should Pitchfork just ignore this sort of music completely? I don't know, but I think they should choose suitable writers carefully; a lot of these articles suggest that the writer was (unknowingly) as uncomfortable reviewing the album as i would be reviewing free jazz. The fact that pop has more public exposure doesn't mean that it's any easier to approach when you have a writer who is miopically focused elsewhere.

It is nice to see a writer branch out like this and try to challenge themselves slightly, but that doesn't mean that readers are going to feel an obligation to smile encouragingly as the writer struggles their way through their private "My First Pop (or Free Jazz or Salsa or Indie Rap) Album" obstacle course. Especially when the reasoning they use verges toward the self-congratulatory so frequently.

But I should say again that I am talking out of my ass as usual -- what I'm reporting is just the feeling I get, not a well-formed opinion. It's just that there seems to be something rather personal going on in the anti-Pitchfork ribbing: the ribbing isn't corrective/helpful, just mean, really uncharacteristic of most ilX0r lighthearted verbal abuse.

On a more general level, I’m disappointed “Gossip Folks” and the 2nd half of the album was not mentioned.

And we're back live, Spring Break (boing), Virginia Beach, Timbaland thumps a pigeon on his windshield with his bhangra bass wiper kick. There's a galloping Eohippus tabla underneath and Missy spits (literally at one point) along with the jittery keyboard. Don't dance, convulse. "You like the way I s-s-sup my style", she taunts and there's a dupa fly in your soup. Missy howls "Nigggaaa" the way Kool Keith squeaks "Galaxy raaayys" mid-line Ultramagnetic's "Raise It Up." Tim goes itch me sun sheesh at the end, which, incidentally, is also the name of the choreographer's favorite power shake, the energy required to keep up with this jolt."

first person to tell me why i like THIS k.k. reference and not the one in the pfork review gets a cookie.

I'm serious though -- I've worked in mental health counseling for years, and if there's one thing I can recognize at a hundred yards, it's when there's a disparity between what someone says is pissing them off and what's actually pissing them off, and the complaints against Pitchfork always have what an MSW I knew would have called "a real funny sound to 'em"

also, brining mental health analogies to ilm always ends in disaster. (i'm not dissing you, mind.)

Um John did you read that review? The writer said that the *only* vocals on the album that were worth salvaging were the ones on "Broken Dreams", and that's because they sounded a bit more like Stereolab than the anonymous diva crap BJ resort to otherwise. The unwritten rule with almost all the pop reviews is that the more times the pop album accidentally conforms to indie behaviour, the better it is. Missy wins over BJ because the old-skool veneer is an easier parallel to draw than a single very fleeting and not very concrete similarity to Stereolab.

It's not just a Pitchfork thing - critics everywhere who treat dance music like rock music obviously get my goat as well. Thankfully that practice seems to have decreased slightly.

i'm certainly not going to be the one to say that there's not a bit of an anti-pfork bias at ilm despite what tom "even steven" ewing might say. (then again i don't also think it's a hive-mind.) but pfork (as a whole) does NOT respond to criticism well (and i'm not even talking about being "attacked") when dismoored from their little tower (aka the pfork mailbag.) i respect (yeah, i said it!) pfork's writers for defending themselves in public (and i even respect a number of pfork's writers in general: dominique, the ever tireless more-patience-than-god-should-allow mark richardson), but they just usually do it so POORLY. did they flunk debate. (cf. my pal ott's outburst above, a guy who has taken "lady, if you have to ask" as his personal credo [ha, like i'm one to talk] but that's a credo that doesn't really work if you don't have anything interesting obscured behind it.)

nitsuh i bigged u up in that fake "article response" richardson started for your electro piece, you big baby!!

If there's any necessary subtext to ILM's treatment of Pitchfork, I'd guess that it's something like this: ILM posters tear into the actual thinking, but what's really annoying them is the sort of jocky tone the reviews can take (cf the mailbag). It's a tone that's pretty hard to strike safely outside of the genres you're most confident with (which is why I doubt I could work up the courage to ever try it at all).

Dominique, that plan has been working for me perfectly! Mentions of Ethan on the Pitchfork boards = 3,000,000, mentions of me = 0.

I'll have you know that blurb was assigned. Generally, I don't even get out of bed for a band from the Western hemisphere.

Yeah go back to opinion school!

(note for later:send jess hatemail re dj sammy article)

come on Jess, give those two a break.

I think a lot of us are here because there isn't any debate in the flesh (that's the case for me). sorry but some of us try to improve.

Ooh, somebody named an adjective after me!

I like any publication people dismiss as 'trendy'. I also like mags to get their facts wrong, because wrong facts lead towards fiction, parallel worlds and unreliable narration. So I'm with Nitsuh on the point that this thread has actually enhanced Pitchfork's status. It makes it a 'passionate subject', somewhat transgressive and divisive.

Above all, I'm just glad that people still write album reviews -- and lots of them, and long -- as if the whole thing mattered. Which it does.

'...a grand total of ecstatic dissonance. Entirely an exercise in counterpoint, “Be Late” is a deceptively simple masterpiece. The clashing melodies are sublimely captivating.
...The curious color of the instrumental tones and the way they mix is a notable achievement... When an album can reach a peak like this in the middle, having begun at an already impressive plateau, then accolades are in order.'

(nb: i'm not saying it doesn't have value. but an entire review full of that seems to be an exercise in uselessness, except possibly as parody which it isn't written well enough to be.)

The gap between critic and reader in a nutshell. ;-)

(sorry to our American viewers for obscure british saturday night dating show reference)

bullshit, people say this ALL THE TIME on ILx

I might add that the vitriol towards Rolling Stone is far and beyond what gets hurled at Pitchfork; perhaps that's just because Pitchfork is relatively irrelevant as a far reaching voice (but more likely it's because Rolling Stone has tumbled so far from its origins.) Personally, I see a lot of potential in Pitchfork--I'm really impressed with the level of writing but the site fills a niche pretty well. And that's fine; it's not lowering my standards to read the fucker any more than I'm becoming (more) retarded by watching SNL.

And speaking of which, that fading show will be on soon and if I don't pack in a couple more beers I might not be able to endure it.

Does anyone know what "our" politics regarding hip-hop are?

I get the feeling that Ryan's enormous skills as a publisher (and this isnt 'even Steven' either - I've said that on practically every PF thread ever!) maybe lead to too much conservatism as an editor: writers like Ethan P or Brent D who want to argue end up sidelined in favour of consensus-builders who happen to agree with Ryan's own taste. And even then Pitchfork misses another opportunity - to forcefully define its own tastes, to acknowledge that they might need defending not stating. I think PF is hugely read and potentially very influential but it still acts like it had about a tenth of the readership it does.

(I think the semi-daily non-review column is the best thing to happen to Pitchfork since I discovered it, too)

bullshit, people say this ALL THE TIME on ILx

People don't start threads: "Here's the thread where we point out how completely awful Spin is," etc. -- the anti-Pitchfork feeling seems quite personal

And, as with the unsubtle reference to "Sea Changes" why are so many people getting worked up over such an AVERAGE record?

Tompkins' review, of course, is the first and last word. His is an aesthetic standard to which I aspire.

I think Breny doesn't write out of time and computer restraints, and Ethan has no excuse (afik).

One thing about the site (and a criticism that I would actually like to lodge) is that the writers generally only write about a small sub-sect of music that interests them. That is, you probably wouldn't see me writing about Interpol because I don't really listen to that kind of thing. One of way looking at it is to say that only the people with "informed opinions" write about the music; another way is saying that pfork is a concensus builder.

"an entire review full of that seems to be an exercise in uselessness"

I mostly agree with your disgust over flowery prose in music journalism. A full-on poetic approach isn't the best way to communicate to a wide or even a narrow audience whether the music is good or bad, how it sounds (as if you could ever really describe that anyway), whether the record is worth buying, etc.

but in defense, the entire Tarwater review isn't really plagued by excess as such. I think it is reasonably contextual and potentially of interest both to people who do and do not know the group.

i'm curious to know though: what do you think are the most important parts of a good music review? Should music reviews be artistic or pragmatic, or else is the ideal review a combination of both?

ben

I stopped counting and caring about F**K PITCHFORK threads over a year ago. Why hasn't ILM? Tom, your point's valid re: "a missed opportunity", but the same can be said of Rolling Stone post-Blood On The Tracks.

A major reason why PF gets talked about more struck me earlier - good design. With RS or Spin or even the NME there's no guarantee that a print piece will make it online and if it does it might well be a real struggle to find. With PF you visit it every day and boom, 4 or 5 new things very easily signposter, each with their own neat little page. Perfect for linking, therefore perfect for online discussion.

More like the gap between the theorists and non-theorists.

Tom you start out one place and seem to end up in another here. I think Ryan's skill as a publisher is his strength but his awareness of PFM's influence is among his weaknesses -- it contributes to the site maintaining its tunnel vision, for the most part. It's Indie Mother Protector and Ryan has a financial stake in keeping it as such (as I understand it, PFM is his day job). That's where the missed opportunity lies, to me, and why I so often find it frustrating: It could create a valuable dialoge about music but typically only sparks conversation about ethos. (And that seems to be where its priority lies.)

But no one talks about Popmatters, or some of the other more-or-less-daily sites, on ILM. Which is cool, I don't care. But the reason Pitchfork is so often discussed to the exclusion of other mags is...what? That so many ILMers write/have written for it? That so many other people WANT to write for it? (I'll admit it: I got rejected a year ago, which didn't bother me one bit. I'm just in this "business" for the free CDs.) Or because it covers the kind of music that a lot of people here kind of like? I can't tell.

And yeah, Pitchfork's writing and editing bug me sometimes, and the reviews occasionally bag on records I like and overpraise records I don't like...but it's also led me to lots of good music and away from some bad music. It's a resource, and there's no point in getting TOO worked up about it.

Seriously, though: 1999 shoulda been higher on that 80s list.

And Matos, you're right too. Didn't wanna leave you out or anything. I'm not sure what "generalist" means, though; maybe some genre of military music? [insert emoticon here to indicate feeble attempt at joke] [joke originally going to be comment about how maybe "generalist" could be translated as "open-minded"] [comment withdrawn]

rather than 'generalist' I might have said 'middlebrow' or something (yknow like onion review or salon-level) about popmatters a year or two ago, but every time I look now I find a review that seems more and more like a pitchfork review in quality, only not as constrained by ryan's house style or whatever.

hell no, have you heard the new single?

i think the "let's pick at pfork's touch&go catalog no./the spelling of indie guitarist X's last name/how could you forget that obscure lathe cut in an edition of 20 mistakes" is kind of pathetic (but i guess it goes with that obsessive indie boy territory.

my point:
if pitchfork news lackey #4 is gonna include facts/trivia as an attempt for cred-grabbing, at least get them right. furthermore i think that the errors i pointed out were a bit more integral to the news blurb than what you exaggerate them out to be (if you're indeed commenting on my response).

flash-forward:
"gygax, did you even read jess' response?"

Okay, gotta go--Mr. Leone thinks this thread isn't cool anymore, and I have to go get me a falafel generalist on pita bread at Lulu's.

http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/d/dead-prez/get-free-or-die-tryin.shtml

did he just endorse the murder of malcolm x (and accuse dead prez of wanting to "off whitey"!!? and x by implication too) or is he just hopelessly painfully utterly offensively ignorant!

i mean could rollie just ONCE quote a lyric that actually *proved* that dead prez hate white people?

and if he mistakes any varient of black nationalism for "hate whitey" does he have *any* business reviewing hip-hop, ever?

(also yeah they're not like heroic figures or anything but nor do they advocate violence against all white people)

actually its an interesting moral question whether its worse to treat all women with equal contempt or only to treat white women with contempt. one side is treating more women with contempt, and the other is racial discrimination.

How to weigh such a problem? As the Maoist International Movement!

"he one thing on this album that is not one bit progressive is the use of
misogynist language. If I had a dollar for every dick sucking reference on
this CD Id have at least enough money to buy another copy. Language that
treats the female gendered role in sexual activities as demeaning promotes
power differences between genders and serves to silence wimmin. Examples
of
this on this album are frequent implications of I dont care about you or I
hate you so you can suck my dick. Similarly, our pornographic culture
promotes the idea that men fuck and wimmin get fucked. And as we all know
getting fucked is bad. We also must oppose all language that insinuates
homosexuality as being bad, like in the intro to No Love that dedicates
the song to faggot-ass bouncers.

"On Lets Get Free, DP complained that the wimmin dont never get
respected. Yet in Soulja Life Mentality, we see a misogynist attitude
towards white girls that cant never be no friend to me/ I just get my dick
sucked/ nut in they mouth instantly/ they aint nothin but freak shows. In
his book Black Skin, White Mask, Franz Fanon explores the role of power in
sexual desires and attitudes between Blacks and whites. Just as the white
man covets the Black womyn as a forbidden treat and a show of dominance,
the
ability to be with a white womyn is a show of power for the Black man.
With
or without this national character, such displays of power over wimmin are
flat out wrong. Despite the fact that white wimmin still have power over
Black men in our society, misogynist attitudes against the oppressor
nation
are not progressive."

And if you don't know, now you know.

"If the title of 50 Cent's latest album, "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," doubles as his mission statement, it would be in the interest of social progress if he reached the
latter fate. While this may seem a strong statement, it's nowhere near as strong as the evidence the 50 Cent's thinking contained on this album is as backward
as humynly possible."

Jennifer Lopez, and her numerous counterparts in movies and music that share her contradictory values of love of wealth and romanticization of poverty, do
nothing for the betterment of the internal semi-colonies they wish to represent. Their aspirations for massive amounts of wealth and celebration of decadence,
only perpetuate the miserable existence of oppressed peoples everywhere. "

Alex in NYC is a Maoist (as is Nate Patrin) and I claim my 5$

http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/movies/howtoreview.html

"Who decides what is progressive?

The party does in light of knowledge of the people. In situations where the party has succeeded in bringing to the fore the opinions of the exploited (not
the majority population of the imperialist countries), those views will help sort out the banning and promotion process. "

the banning and promotion process!! and omg they have a tribute to godard too.

from their r. kelly review:

"After listening to all this sleepy music, I can see how someone wants to watch a video of someone urinating on someone else. The lyrics are tired, very tired
and the music is soothing to non-existent. MIM is seeking to come to power to lead society out of exactly this sort of rut that Kelly's life seems to typify
right now. "

http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/bookstore/music/alternative/goodcharlotte.html

"Perhaps too raw to be correct, "Girls & Boys" also has the benefit of not being too overly persynal. "The girls with the bodies like boys with the Ferraris." Good Charlotte is correct and what we like is the willingness to generalize in the whole song. To translate for some of our audience that does not know all the English idioms, Good Charlotte is saying that heterosexual men are interested in how a womyn looks, but supposedly heterosexual wimmin are interested in money and cars. Good Charlotte identifies good looks with power for wimmin: "boys will laugh at girls when they're not funny." Good Charlotte points to an example of something that we believe communism has to address in order to succeed: somehow we have to disentangle sex and power despite thousands of years of life and custom to the contrary."

Under the dictatorship of the proletariat, allow reactionary music and films to continue and phase in revisions of reactionary art, because we recognize it takes time. We seek to improve pop culture as fast as we can without leaving a vacuum.

(this is kinda dumb)

but Brent D's review
of the new Missy today
has the following:

"'You ain't got ta sell ya' lil' phone / It's all right'"

Clearly this quote is
"Cellular phone", Mr. D!
(I've done this before,

especially when
I'm reviewing reggae stuff
and of course hip-hop)

Yeah, while I wish We Are Monster was an Album w/Overarching Concerns and Worldview, not just a Bunch Of Sweet Similar-Sounding Stand-Alone Tracks, I'm also convinced that in fact, a worldview is there, and probably an exciting one at that. I just haven't cracked one yet-- or just won't be able to.

(1) "Worldview" carrying connotations beyond just "perspective" or "outlook" but encompassing the literalness of "world" = international, as Mueller has said that he (i.e., Mueller himself) doesn't consider himself German w/r/t ethnic identity, but that said identity is meaningless within a postmodern digital age.